Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’ is spoken of — and rightfully so — as a comedy and a suspense thriller. While it is both of those, readers familiar with her work may find an unusual undercurrent of loss.The play was first performed in 1952, just a few years after the war ended. Everyone seems suspicious of what (or whom) the war has turned other people into.The plot is classic Christie: you are trapped in a location with the murder (think ‘And Then There Were None’) and a nursery rhyme is crucial to the murders (as in half a dozen odd Christie novels).Most people’s interest in the play would be its playwright and she does not disappoint.The identity of the killer is not given away till the last few minutes of the play — it’s not an easy guess — and no one can top Christie in her use of red herrings. The characters are so complex and troubled in their own ways that the people remain interesting even after the case is solved.However, ‘The Mousetrap’ does not have the intricate plotting of her best works. And I am thinking of novels such as ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ and ‘And Then There Were None’. Perhaps we should not place any blame here because the novel provides a far wider field of play for the writer.The cast, staging and technical perfection at the Bengaluru show more than made up for that. The humour was fantastic and every actor was very good, but there must be a special nod to the actors who played Mrs Boyle and Sergeant Trotter.Some dialogues in the play have not aged very well, but in 2019, a “socialist” Miss Casewell appears positively “woke”.